break environmental laws
Trump has repeatedly rejected climate change, calling it a hoax, con job, or a scam. While in office, his administrations have aggressively moved to weaken the EPA and neuter environmental laws and regulations. In essence, environmental laws and regulations are mostly no longer in effect. There is no major enforcement in practical terms. Law and regulation enforcement still exists on paper in a small number of cases. The number of civil lawsuits, inspections, penalties, and prosecutions has fallen sharply to a point that many experts describe enforcement efforts as effectively collapsed, not a functioning enforcement regime.
Targeting endangered species
Trump and MAGA elites also do not care about species going extinct. At present, the greatest threat to animals in the US and globally is habitat destruction. Grasslands are being converted to farms, forests are cut, and wetlands are being drained to build suburbs. That’s the main reason why hundreds of species have been listed under the Endangered Species Act. That law gives federal protection to species that are currently at risk of extinction or are about to be. Well, at least that is what federal law used to do.
A new Trump administration rule says that destroying habitat of federally threatened and endangered species is no longer explicitly illegal. That is the case even if it causes species extinctions. That reverses decades of regulatory precedent and practice. Experts note that Trump’s new rule directly contradicts the intent of the Endangered Species Act. Congress passed that law in 1973 with near-unanimous bipartisan support. Richard Nixon signed the bill into law.
The legality of Trump’s new rule is being challenged in court, but this is another example of the intense hostility that Trump and MAGA elites have for environmental protections and laws.
Ignoring public opinion
MAGA’s constant hostility toward environmental law and protection is contrary to majority US public opinion. About 66% are worried some or a lot about climate change. But, authoritarians usually don’t care about public opinion. And kleptocrats don’t care about much of anything if it gets in the way of amassing wealth. Public opinion on this issue has little to no impact on Trump and pro-pollution MAGA politics and policy. To limit public disapproval, Trump is hiding as much information related to global warming as possible.
Info sources:
Trump wages battle against regulations, not climate change -- Trump's recent decision to pull out of the Paris climate deal was just his latest rapid-fire move to weaken or dismantle federal initiatives to reduce carbon emissions, which scientists say are heating the planet to levels that could have disastrous consequences.
Trump's EPA issues record low legal actions against polluters, watchdog group finds -- Last March, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced plans to target more than two dozen rules and policies, calling it the "most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history".
Despite What This EPA Says, Enforcement under Trump Has Dropped -- In a press release, the agency claims the results show “the strongest enforcement and compliance results in years.” But three independent groups’ analyses of this report, including the group we represent, paint a much different picture: of a record plunge in the agency’s enforcement of the nation’s laws protecting human health and the environment.
Civil Cases Against Major Polluters Plummet Under Trump -- And last week, the E.P.A. said it would rescind the landmark scientific finding that enables the government to regulate the greenhouse gases that are warming the planet.
It’s no longer illegal to destroy the one thing endangered species need most to survive -- Under the new rule, set to take effect in September, “harm” no longer explicitly includes actions that may accidentally or indirectly doom a wildlife population to extinction.
Trump administration rule weakens protections for threatened species -- The Trump administration finalized a major change on Friday to how threatened species are considered in agency actions, removing regulatory language aimed at preventing damage to wildlife habitats and drawing a legal challenge.
Climate Change Concern Near Its High Point in U.S. -- In addition to the 44% now worrying a great deal about global warming or climate change, another 22% worry “a fair amount,” while 12% say they worry “only a little” and 23% do not worry at all.
As Trump Administration Purges Climate Data and Web Pages, Research Groups Scramble to Save Information -- The Trump administration has directed federal agency staff to remove climate references and scientific data from many web pages. Researchers are rushing to archive it.
Major climate change reports are removed from U.S. websites -- Legally mandated U.S. national climate assessments seem to have disappeared from the federal websites built to display them, making it harder for state and local governments and the public to learn what to expect in their backyards from a warming world.
Trump Pardons Violators of the Clean Air Act and a Major Donor -- The White House announced on Friday that President Trump had issued pardons to 11 men, most of whom had been convicted of crimes related to the Clean Air Act, a bedrock environmental law.
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